Rodent problem stalls Newington hotel plan

NEWINGTON — A family of beavers is blocking the proposed revival of a plan for a hotel near The Mall at Fox Run.

Joey Cresta

NEWINGTON — A family of beavers is blocking the proposed revival of a plan for a hotel near The Mall at Fox Run.

Town Planner Tom Morgan revealed the existence of the beaver dam, to the surprise of both Portsmouth attorney Bernie Pelech and members of the Planning Board, at the board's meeting Wednesday night.

Pelech is representing Doloma Investment Inc. in its bid for an extension of a site plan approval on a hotel project between Woodbury Avenue and Shattuck Way that has been dormant for several years.

Documents filed with the town lay out plans for a four-story, 13,000-square-foot, 74-room La Quinta Inn and Suites. The Planning Board initially granted approval for the project in 2007, then approved minor adjustments in 2008.

Pelech said that nothing about the plans has changed since then, but Morgan informed him that conditions are different at the site than they once were.

Namely, a family of beavers has been "very active" out there in the past couple of years, and the property has become wetter than it used to be, Morgan said.

According to Morgan, there have been attempts to take down the beaver dam several times, but the beavers keep rebuilding it. The water became so high that it posed a concern due to a town sewer manhole in the area, he said.

Morgan cautioned that he last visited the site to document the conditions six months ago, so it was possible the beavers are gone now, but Planning Board members suggested the rodents are likely still living there. Chairman Denis Hebert said he would like to hear the property owner's plans for beaver removal, and the board continued the discussion until its January meeting.

Aside from the beaver concerns, Planning Board member Justin Richardson said he would like reassurances that when the N.H. Department of Environmental Services considers a new alteration-of-terrain permit, it would apply all new regulations that have been added since the project's initial approval.

Alteration-of-terrain permits protect surface waters, drinking water supplies and groundwater by controlling soil erosion and managing storm water runoff from developed areas, according to the DES Web site.

Pelech told the board he conferred with civil engineer Gregg Mikolaities of Tighe & Bond, who was confident they would have no problem getting a new DES permit. Pelech said the plan approved in 2007-08 contained some storm water management features that were considered "state of the art" at the time.

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